A recent poll puts Biden leading Trump 54-38, but the ex-president has committed supporters ahead of state’s primary
Had he heard it, Joe Biden would surely have been delighted by Bianca Siegl’s comment – and the fact she barely paused before making it.
“Of course I will be voting on Tuesday,” says the 47-year-old, speaking at a farmers’ market in Seattle’s University district. “If Trump were to get elected, it would be incredibly dangerous for the world and for my family.”
Continue reading...After successes in Michigan, Minnesota and Hawaii, local organizers urge voters to keep pressure on Biden for ceasefire
The movement among Democrats to cast a Gaza protest vote against President Joe Biden in the primary election moves to Washington state on Tuesday.
Organizers with Vote Uncommitted WA have been working for two weeks to ramp up outreach to voters via phone, text, online and in-person connections to explain how they can use their primary ballots to check “uncommitted delegates” to send a message to Biden in support of a permanent ceasefire.
Continue reading...Guests at Biden address to include Alabama woman whose IVF was cancelled, and Texas women who went through abortion ordeals
More than a quarter of Black female voters describe abortion has their top issue in this year’s presidential election, according to a new poll.
The findings by health policy research firm KFF reveal a significant shift from previous election years, when white, conservative evangelicals were more likely to put abortion as their biggest priority when voting, AP reported. Those voters were highly motivated in recent presidential elections to cast ballots for Donald Trump.
Abortion voters are young, Black women – and not white evangelicals.
Continue reading...White House says Cox and Latorya Beasley’s stories show ‘how the overturning of Roe v Wade has disrupted access to healthcare’
An Alabama mother who saw a second round of IVF canceled after the state supreme court ruled that embryos were children and a Texas mother forced to travel outside her state for a doctor-recommended abortion were due to attend Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday, as guests of the first lady, Jill Biden.
The White House said the cases of Latorya Beasley of Birmingham, Alabama, and Kate Cox, from Dallas, Texas, showed “how the overturning of Roe v Wade has disrupted access to reproductive healthcare for women and families across the country”.
Continue reading...Congressman and ex-Dodgers player emerge as top two contenders, boxing out progressives Katie Porter and Barbara Lee
Adam Schiff, the centrist Democratic congressman, is poised to be the next US senator from California after securing enough votes to advance to the November election. He will face off with Republican Steve Garvey, a former professional baseball player, who also performed well in the non-partisan primary on Tuesday.
Schiff, a pro-Israel Democrat, was quickly called a winner by the Associated Press, and Garvey secured his spot in the general election about an hour after polls closed.
Continue reading...Republican candidate pulls out of race; Biden campaign says Trump running ‘on an extreme agenda’ in fresh warning after Super Tuesday
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Nikki Haley is to pull out of the 2024 presidential election race. It says the candidate is expected to make a brief appearance at 10am ET (3pm GMT).
Haley has won only two primaries – the District of Columbia and Vermont – during her campaign.
Haley won’t announce an endorsement Wednesday, the people said. She will encourage Donald Trump, who is close to having the delegates needed to win the GOP nomination, to earn the support of Republican and independent voters who backed her.
She is expected to emphasize that she will continue to advocate for the conservative domestic and foreign policies she supports and caution against some of the dangers, such as isolationism and a lack of fiscal discipline, that she sees coming from Washington.
Continue reading...Donald Trump looks all but certain of Republican presidential nomination as Nikki Haley rejects suggestions of third-party bid and says she may keep fighting
Over at CNN, Ronald Brownstein has an analysis piece which looks a little at the potential weakness of Donald Trump support away from his core base. Brownstein writes:
[Trump’s] performance so far reflects his success at transforming the Republican Party in his image. He’s reshaped the Republicans into a more blue-collar, populist and pugnacious party, focused more on his volatile blend of resentments against elites and cultural and racial change than the Ronald Reagan-era priorities of smaller government and active global leadership that former South Carolina Gov Nikki Haley has stressed.
But while the primaries have underscored Trump’s grip on the GOP, they have also demonstrated continued vulnerability for him in the areas where he has labored since he first announced his candidacy in 2015 – particularly among the white-collar suburban voters who mostly leaned toward the GOP before his emergence. The early 2024 nominating contests have shown that a substantial minority of Republican-leaning voters remain resistant to Trump’s vision.
Continue reading...Democratic senator Sherrod Brown endorsed the Sesame Street star’s complaint on products getting smaller as prices remain same
The Ohio Democratic senator Sherrod Brown endorsed a key voice in the American public square – Cookie Monster – in a complaint about shrinkflation.
“Me hate shrinkflation!” the Sesame Street character posted on social media on Monday, referring to an economic phenomenon Merriam-Webster defines as “the practice of reducing a product’s amount or volume per unit while continuing to offer it at the same price”.
Continue reading...The bill sets a discretionary spending level of $1.66tn for fiscal 2024 and still faces opposition from hardline House Republicans
US congressional negotiators on Sunday revealed a bill to fund key parts of the government through the rest of the fiscal year that began in October, as lawmakers faced yet another threat of a partial shutdown if they fail to act by Friday.
The legislation sets a discretionary spending level of $1.66tn for fiscal 2024, a spokesperson for Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said. It fills in the details of an agreement that Schumer and Republican House of Representatives speaker Mike Johnson set in early January.
Continue reading...Supreme court rejects Democratic lawsuit challenging new maps drawn by Democratic governor Tony Evers
The liberal-controlled Wisconsin supreme court on Friday rejected a Democratic lawsuit that sought to throw out the battleground state’s congressional maps, marking a victory for Republicans who argued against the court taking up the case.
The decision not to hear the congressional challenge comes after the court in December ordered new legislative maps, saying the Republican-drawn ones were unconstitutional. The GOP-controlled state legislature, out of fear that the court would order maps even more unfavorable to Republicans, passed maps drawn by the Democratic governor, Tony Evers. Evers signed those into law on 19 February and urged the court to take up the congressional map challenge.
Continue reading...Majority leader Chuck Schumer had hailed bipartisan legislation to stop partial shutdown due to occur this weekend
The Senate has passed a short-term funding bill following a House vote on Thursday afternoon, narrowly averting a partial government shutdown that was due to occur this weekend.
Ahead of the Senate vote, the majority leader, Chuck Schumer, addressed the chamber floor, saying that he saw “no reason this should take a very long time”.
Continue reading...Dueling border visits of 2024 contenders 300 miles apart shows that immigration has become a central issue in the White House campaign
It might be seen as the first US presidential debate of 2024. Two candidates and two lecterns but 300 miles – and a political universe – apart.
Joe Biden and Donald Trump spent Thursday at the US-Mexico border, a vivid display of how central the immigration issue has become to the election campaign. Since it is far from certain whether official presidential debates will happen this year, the duelling visits might be as close as it gets.
Continue reading...Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith rejects Access to Family Building Act, saying bill is ‘vast overreach full of poison pills’
Senate Democrats’ attempts to move forward a bill that would have granted Americans federal protections for in vitro fertilization access have failed.
The bill, sponsored by the Illinois Democrat Tammy Duckworth, came after a recent Alabama supreme court ruling that declared frozen embryos are children and led to the closure of multiple infertility clinics across the state.
Continue reading...Follow live as the state’s Republican and Democratic voters choose their preferred candidate for the US presidential election
Democrats and Republicans went to the polls on Tuesday for Michigan’s presidential primary. The critical swing state’s election will prove a test for both frontrunners, Joe Biden and Donald Trump. But a separate Republican convention held on Saturday will determine the final delegate count for the Republican party.
Here are the results from the 27 February Michigan primary:
Continue reading...Biden says he ‘didn’t know my good friend, apparently, is going’ as he plans Brownsville visit while Trump heads for Eagle Pass
Joe Biden and Donald Trump will both travel to the US border with Mexico on Thursday, dueling visits by the president and his probable opponent for re-election underlining the importance of immigration as an issue in the coming campaign.
Biden will visit Brownsville, Texas, in the Rio Grande valley, while his presidential predecessor will head for Eagle Pass, about 325 miles distant.
Continue reading...Gretchen Whitmer responds to calls by some Democrats to vote ‘uncommitted’ in Michigan’s primary on Tuesday
Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor, pushed back on calls to not vote for Joe Biden over his handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict, saying on Sunday that could help Trump get re-elected.
“It’s important not to lose sight of the fact that any vote that’s not cast for Joe Biden supports a second Trump term,” she said on Sunday during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. “A second Trump term would be devastating. Not just on fundamental rights, not just on our democracy here at home, but also when it comes to foreign policy. This was a man who promoted a Muslim ban.”
Continue reading...Journalist seeks to flip Long Island seat as a Democrat to build ‘broadest possible coalition to defeat Donald Trump’
The former Daily Beast editor and CNN anchor John Avlon announced his candidacy for US Congress in New York as a Democrat, seeking to flip a seat on Long Island, where Republicans saw surprising gains in the 2022 midterm elections.
In a video announcement, Avlon said he was running to help Democrats win back the House from Donald Trump’s “Maga minions”.
Continue reading...Governor’s signature marks end of long fight over legislative lines and greatly reduces the Republican bias baked into current maps
The Wisconsin governor, Tony Evers, has signed into law a pair of new state legislative maps, undoing a Republican gerrymander that has shaped Wisconsin politics for more than a decade and giving Democrats a chance at winning control of the state in future elections.
“It’s a new day for Wisconsin,” said Evers at a press conference on Monday to cheers from a room of anti-gerrymandering activists.
Continue reading...Michigan representative tells state voters to pick ‘uncommitted’ option over White House support for Israel’s strikes on Gaza
The progressive US congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has called on her fellow Michigan Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in the state’s presidential primary election – at the expense of the party’s incumbent, Joe Biden – in late February.
Appearing in a video posted to X on Saturday by Listen to Michigan, a political campaign to encourage the state’s voters to vote “uncommitted” in the 27 February primary, Tlaib justified her stark display of displeasure with Biden by alluding to Israel’s military strikes on Gaza, which local authorities say have killed nearly 29,000 Palestinians since last October.
Continue reading...Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay more than $350m in fines and barred him from running New York businesses for three years
Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis’ father took the stand now, testifying about threats she faced at the home he lived in with her in 2019 and 2020, before she moved to a new place after people outside her house called her slurs and threatened her there.
John Floyd, Willis’ dad, was asked about her romantic relationships and how often he saw people she had dated, including special prosecutor Nathan Wade. He said he hadn’t met Wade until 2023, and a previous boyfriend he saw often in earlier years was a disc jockey. (Previous testimony from a former friend of Willis claimed the two started dating much earlier than they’d claimed.)
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