Category Archives: US elections 2024

California election results: Adam Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey advance to November Senate race

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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.

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After Michigan success, Biden ballot protest movement heads to Georgia

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Campaign to ‘leave it blank’ or vote ‘uncommitted’ aims to increase pressure on Biden to stop Israel’s incursion in Gaza

A protest movement in Georgia – a swing state that President Biden narrowly won in 2020 – is seeking to apply pressure to the incumbent over his support of Israel before the 12 March Democratic primary election.

On Monday, a group of multifaith and multiracial groups called the Listen to Georgia Coalition launched the Leave It Blank campaign, which urges voters to submit a blank ballot next Tuesday. The push follows a similar grassroots effort – Listen to Michigan – in which more than 100,000 voters marked their ballots “uncommitted” last month.

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Super Tuesday 2024 live: millions of voters head to polls in the US as Haley suggests she could stay in the race

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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.

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Biden says in rare print interview he’ll beat Trump but polls say otherwise

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US president tells New Yorker he is ‘the only one who has ever beat’ Trump but clear majorities think he is too old for second term

In a rare print interview, Joe Biden addressed fears over his chances of victory in the coming US presidential election and said he was “the only one who has ever beat” his likely Republican challenger, Donald Trump, adding: “And I’ll beat him again.”

But the president was voicing a conviction at odds with most polling, in which clear majorities think that at 81 he is too old for a second term and narrow majorities put Trump ahead in a general election match-up.

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Donald Trump sweeps Michigan’s Republican party convention

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Former president is awarded all 39 state delegates for November’s national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Donald Trump continued his march toward the GOP nomination at the Michigan Republican party convention on Saturday, sweeping all 39 delegates.

The delegates awarded will fuel Trump ahead of Tuesday, 5 March, when 15 states will hold primaries and Trump’s nomination could be all but decided. The Michigan state party delegates met on Saturday at the sprawling Amway Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, huddling in 13 separate meeting rooms representing the state’s 13 congressional districts.

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Joe Biden’s disapproval rating reaches new high, according to new poll

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The president has a 47% disapproval rating, but it’s a mixed bag when accounting for ‘double haters’ – those who dislike Trump too

Strong voter disapproval of Joe Biden’s job performance has reached 47% – the highest negative polling number at any point in his presidency, according to a survey published on Saturday.

The Siena College-conducted poll, commissioned by the New York Times, showed that Biden currently lags behind likely Republican candidate Donald Trump 43% to 48% in registered voters nationally.

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Michigan Republicans prepare for fraught delegate convention

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The state GOP had ousted its party chair, Kristina Karamo, in January, but she has not accepted her removal, dividing members

Michigan Republicans are gathering in Grand Rapids for a convention they hope will be less fraught than the last four months of chaotic power struggle within the state Republican party.

During Saturday’s convention, the party will choose most of the delegates it will send to the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in July to formally choose the party’s 2024 presidential candidate (Tuesday’s primary, which Trump won, determined the rest).

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‘I don’t know’: Nikki Haley unsure Trump would follow constitution

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Trump’s last remaining Republican primary challenger says ‘I don’t think there should ever be a president that’s above the law’

Asked if she thought Donald Trump would follow the US constitution if he is elected for a second term as president, Nikki Haley said: “I don’t know.”

“I don’t know. I don’t – I don’t know,” the former South Carolina governor, Trump’s last opponent for the Republican presidential nomination, told NBC’s Meet the Press in an interview to be broadcast in full on Sunday.

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Trump Georgia case: judge says he hopes to have decision on whether to disqualify Fani Willis in two weeks – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed. You can read the full report on the Fani Willis hearing here.

The judge overseeing the criminal case over Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents has described the prosecution’s proposed schedule for getting to trial as “unrealistic”.

Federal prosecutors for special counsel Jack Smith have proposed a 8 July start date, while attorneys for Trump have suggested that he stand trial on 12 August.

That has to come into the equation, to some extent, on scheduling.

Yeah, certainly he would be somebody that I would very much consider.

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Biden urges Trump to help him pass immigration deal as both visit US border

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President implores Republicans to ‘show a little spine’ and support bipartisan border and security bill as Trump speaks at Eagle Pass

Joe Biden and his all-but certain Republican challenger, Donald Trump, made dueling visits to Texas border towns on Thursday, a rare overlap that sets the stage for an election-season clash over immigration.

In Brownsville, along the Rio Grande on the border with Mexico, Biden implored Congressional Republicans to “show a little spine” and support a bipartisan border security deal. Earlier this month Republican lawmakers blocked legislation they had previously clamored for, after Trump expressed his opposition to the measure.

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Trump appeals Illinois judge’s ruling removing him from primary ballot

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Judge Tracie Porter had ordered Trump’s removal from presidential ballot for his role in the US Capitol attack

Donald Trump has appealed a decision from an Illinois state judge who decided he should be removed from that state’s ballot because of the 14th amendment, an ongoing issue for Trump in the courts.

Tracie Porter, the Cook county circuit judge, made the decision on Wednesday, reversing the previous decision by the Illinois state board of elections, which said Trump could stay on the ballot. The order was put on hold pending an appeal from Trump, which came swiftly on Thursday.

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Trump scores another convincing win against Haley in Michigan primary

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Defeated former South Carolina governor has pledged to stay in Republican presidential primaries at least through Super Tuesday

Donald Trump has won Michigan’s Republican primary election, the latest in a string of convincing primary victories as he closes in on the GOP presidential nomination.

The Associated Press called the race for Trump over the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley at 9pm ET.

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Michigan primary 2024: track live results

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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:

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Michigan primary to test Biden and Trump among key voting groups

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Trump faces local leaders embroiled in factional dispute, while Biden faces a campaign by antiwar activists to abandon him

Voters will make their way to the polls in Michigan today, in a presidential primary that will test how much Joe Biden and Donald Trump should be worried about winning key groups of voters for the general election in the critical swing state.

Both face challenges within their respective parties. After underperforming the polls and struggling with suburban and college-educated Republican voters in earlier primaries, Trump’s campaign in Michigan is dealing with a state Republican party whose local leaders have been embroiled in an ugly factional dispute, while Biden faces a campaign by antiwar activists to abandon him over the president’s continued support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

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Biden and Trump to visit US-Mexico border on same day

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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.

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Senior Republican who called Trump ‘inexcusable’ endorses him for president

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Senator John Thune previously denounced Trump for role in Capitol attack in 2021 but now vows to back him in 2024 election

The No2 Republican in the US Senate, John Thune of South Dakota, endorsed for president Donald Trump – the man he previously called “inexcusable” for seeking to overturn the 2020 election and inciting the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.

Multiple media outlets reported Thune’s endorsement. They also swiftly pointed out statements made by Thune after the 2021 US Capitol attack, now linked to nine deaths, more than 1,200 arrests and hundreds of convictions, some for seditious conspiracy.

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Six out of 10 South Carolina Republican primary voters think Biden wasn’t legitimately elected

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Exit polls show election denialism has become mainstream among Republicans despite studies finding no widespread fraud in 2020

More than 60% of South Carolina Republican primary voters said they don’t believe Joe Biden was legitimately elected, according to exit polls, the latest data point that underscores how election denialism has become a mainstream belief in the Republican party.

Eighty-seven percent of those who don’t believe the US president was legitimately elected supported Donald Trump, according to a CNN exit poll of South Carolina primary voters. Just 12% supported Nikki Haley. Among those who believe Biden legitimately won in 2020, the results were nearly flipped 81% supported Haley, while 19% supported the former president.

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Michigan governor says not voting for Biden over Gaza war ‘supports second Trump term’

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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.”

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Trump soundly defeats Nikki Haley in South Carolina Republican primary

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Result called for Trump almost immediately after polls close as former South Carolina governor suffers stinging home-state loss

Donald Trump defeated Nikki Haley in her home state of South Carolina, a stinging setback that narrows her vanishingly thin path to the nomination.

The Associated Press called the South Carolina primary for Trump right when polls closed at 7pm ET, in a clear indication of his large victory in Haley’s home state. Trump locked in approximately 60% of the vote, with Haley hovering at about 40%.

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Another loss, but Haley presses on for Republicans not ready to crown Trump

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The Republican contender has exasperated her rival by not dropping out, but she believes not everyone in the party is enamored of Trump

Losing South Carolina is almost always a bad omen for presidential hopefuls and defeat in a candidate’s home state is viewed as irrevocable. But as the last Republican standing between Donald Trump and the Republican party nomination, Nikki Haley thrilled supporters on Saturday by deftly capitalizing on her small but consistent show of support from voters desperate for an alternative.

Trump was declared the winner within one minute of polls closing in the Palmetto State, an unsurprising but nevertheless stinging rebuke for Haley at the hands of the voters who twice elected her governor.

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