Democrats seize on Iowa results to campaign on threats posed by Trump

Kamala Harris reminds voters of Trump’s role in overturning Roe v Wade as unstated core of campaign is Biden can beat him again

Top Democrats did not react to Donald Trump’s crushing win in the Iowa caucuses on Monday with the dismay that might have been expected. Instead, the victory of the twice-impeached, 91-times criminally charged former president was heralded as an early beginning to the battle for the White House itself.

Called early, Trump’s victory came by 30 points over the hard-right Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who edged the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley for second. Only one of 99 Iowa counties did not go for Trump: Johnson county, which includes the University of Iowa, was won by Haley, the relative moderate left in the race – by a single vote.

Continue reading...

Iowa caucuses 2024 live: Trump wins state as Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis vie for second and third place

Former US president beats Republican rivals in first state to choose their Republican candidate

Florida senator Marco Rubio formally endorsed Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign on Sunday, effectively snubbing his state’s own governor Ron DeSantis.

In a social media post, Rubio cited his work with Trump to expand child tax credit as well as sanctions placed on Cuba and Venezuela as reasons for throwing his support behind the former president. Rubio added:

I support Trump because that kind of leadership is the ONLY way we will get the extraordinary actions needed to fix the disaster Biden has created.

Continue reading...

Donald Trump wins in Iowa as first contest kicks off 2024 presidential race

AP called race for Trump rapidly, while caucusgoers in much of the state were still casting ballots, a sign of his wide lead in the race

Donald Trump won the US’s first election contest of 2024, easily fending off a winnowed field of Republicans who failed to gain as much traction as the cult of personality surrounding the former president.

The Associated Press called the race for Trump rapidly, while caucusgoers in much of the state were still casting ballots, a sign of the wide lead the former president has in the race.

Continue reading...

Kamala Harris warns US freedom is under ‘profound threat’ in MLK Jr day speech

US vice-president speaks at South Carolina event honoring the civil rights leader, urging voters to ‘roll up our sleeves’

Kamala Harris issued a plea to Black voters on Martin Luther King Jr Day to join with Democrats to win the 2024 election and to stave off what she said were threats to US democracy posed by Republicans who look set to overwhelmingly back Donald Trump at their first state nomination contest today in Iowa.

The US vice-president, the headliner at the NAACP’s annual King Day at the Dome event in Columbia, South Carolina, said that freedom in the country is under “profound threat”, and cited the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade, long lines for voting, Republican-backed book bans and the prevalence of gun violence.

Continue reading...

Vivek Ramaswamy urges supporters not to believe polls in final Iowa pitch

Republican presidential candidate makes final appearance in Iowa hours ahead of caucuses

Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur who has gone all in on Iowa to jumpstart his presidential bid, urged supporters not to believe the polls during a final appearance at a Cedar Rapids brewery hours ahead of Monday night’s caucuses.

Ramaswamy has visited all 99 counties in Iowa twice and even rented an apartment in Des Moines during the final stretch of the campaign. He said on Monday he had done nearly 400 events in the state.

Continue reading...

US election season begins as Iowa Republicans brave cold in first caucuses

Latest polls place Donald Trump as clear frontrunner for party’s nomination in first round of voting in 2024 primary

Iowa Republicans braved brutally cold temperatures on Monday evening to participate in the state’s presidential caucuses, as Donald Trump remains the clear frontrunner in the race for his party’s nomination.

The caucuses began at 7pm CT and marked the first round of voting in the 2024 presidential primary. They will offer the most tangible insight yet into whether any of Trump’s primary opponents, particularly the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, and the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, have managed to diminish his significant polling advantage in the race. Trump has maintained that advantage for months, even as he has been charged with 91 felony counts across four criminal cases.

Continue reading...

‘This person should not be president’: Kamala Harris takes hits in book on Biden

Hunter Walker and Luppe B Luppen, authors of The Truce, quote former staffers to vice-president in scathing assessment

Considering Kamala Harris’s fitness to take over from Joe Biden should the need arise, a top aide to the former California senator’s 2020 campaign said: “This person should not be president of the United States.”

The withering assessment, given after Harris was picked for vice-president in 2020, is reported in The Truce: Progressives, Centrists and the Future of the Democratic Party, by the reporters Hunter Walker and Luppe B Luppen. The book will be published in the US on 24 January 2024. The Guardian obtained a copy.

Continue reading...

‘Ready to rumble’: Trump holds Iowa campaign rally more akin to victory lap

Event, briefly interrupted by young climate protesters, overshadows those of former president’s Republican rivals

It was a melancholy farewell. Three years ago this week, Donald Trump departed on Air Force One for the last time as Frank Sinatra’s My Way blared from loudspeakers. The outgoing US president was defeated, disgraced and seemingly down and out.

Amid the snowy plains of Iowa, however, Trump is set to pull off one of the most improbable of all political comebacks. On Sunday, he held a campaign rally more akin to a victory lap in a state where Republican caucus-goers look certain to back him for a swift return to the White House.

Continue reading...

Nikki Haley rides Iowa momentum, but likely for second place

The former South Carolina governor wins over Republicans who see another Donald Trump presidential term as ‘chaos’

One day before the Iowa caucuses, Nikki Haley addressed an energized crowd at a barbecue restaurant in Ames, just a few miles from Iowa State University. Despite the freezing temperatures, the room was filled to capacity with campaign volunteers, journalists and a few undecided caucus-goers.

“This is truly cold,” Haley said. “But we’re going to keep on going anywhere and everywhere. We’re going to go all the way until the last hour because we know what situation we’re in.”

Continue reading...

Extreme cold and snow blanket Iowa ahead of Monday’s Republican caucuses

Candidates were forced to cancel campaign events as snow closed rural highways and temperatures are expected to plummet

Wild and dangerous winter storm weather continued to wreak havoc on Saturday in Iowa just two days before the Republican caucuses kick off the official nominating process for the 2024 presidential election.

The National Weather Service (NWS) in the state capital of Des Moines said on Saturday morning that more snow was expected, in combination with lingering gusty winds causing “blowing snow and whiteout conditions at times” and warned that “travel is expected to remain treacherous, so consider altering plans”.

Continue reading...

Who benefits as Christie ends presidential bid before Iowa caucus? – podcast

Hours before Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis took to the debate stage in Iowa on Wednesday night, more than 1,000 miles away in New Hampshire Chris Christie shocked his supporters by announcing he was dropping out of the race. The former New Jersey governor was the only candidate to consistently attack Donald Trump, in a field of Republicans trying to beat the former president, all the while keeping his base sweet.

With only three days until the Iowa caucus, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Elaine Kamarck about who is most likely to come out on top

Archive: CBS, CNN, MSNBC, CSPAN

Continue reading...

Nikki Haley emerges from TV debate as Trump’s nearest rival as Iowa vote looms

Former South Carolina governor, boosted by Chris Christie’s exit, has hopes of seizing second in Iowa caucuses from Ron DeSantis

The former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley emerged from the last televised debate before the Iowa caucuses clearly Donald Trump’s strongest challenger for the Republican presidential nomination, boosted by the withdrawal of Chris Christie, the only explicitly anti-Trump candidate to register significantly with voters.

Voting begins in Iowa on Monday, before New Hampshire stages its primary a week on Tuesday. Haley has closed on Trump in New Hampshire and has hopes of seizing second place in Iowa at the expense of the rightwing Florida governor, Ron DeSantis.

Continue reading...

Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley go head to head in Republican presidential debate – live

With less than a week to go before the first-in-the-country Iowa caucuses two challengers to Donald Trump make their case

Trump has decided the identity of his running mate in the presidential election but is not yet ready to announce it, he told a Fox News town hall in Iowa on Wednesday.

Asked who he would pick as vice-president, Trump replied: “Well, I can’t tell you that, really. I mean, I know who it’s going to be but –”
Co-host Bret Baier entreated: “Give us a hint.”

Trump joked in response: “We’ll do another show some time.”

Donald Trump began his Iowa town hall on Fox News by highlighting an incident in which Chris Christie was caught on a hot mic. “She’s going to get smoked, and you and I both know it,” the former New Jersey governor was heard saying on his campaign’s live stream. “She’s not up to this.”

It is widely assumed that Christie, who dropped out of the Republican primary race today, was referring to Nikki Haley, perceived as Trump’s principal rival in New Hampshire.

Trump said: “Chris Christie was in and he got a hot mic I heard about. I thought the bigger story wasn’t actually the fact that he dropped out – nobody cared too much about that – but he had a hot mic where he was talking to somebody about the weather and he happened to say she doesn’t have what it takes, she’ll be creamed in the election.”

The former president added: “I know her very well and I happen to believe that Chris Christie’s right. That’s one of the few things he’s been right about actually.”

Trump admitted he didn’t known whether Christie’s departure would change the dynamic of the race and complained that independents and Democrats can vote in the Republican primary. “Even with that, I think we’ll win substantially,” he added.

Continue reading...

Republican Chris Christie suspends presidential bid

Ex-New Jersey governor, only candidate to attack Trump, heard on hot mic predicting Nikki Haley would get ‘smoked’ in primary race

The former New Jersey governor Chris Christie has suspended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, he announced on Wednesday evening.

“It is clear to me tonight that there is not a path to win the nomination,” he said at a town hall in Windham, New Hampshire.

Continue reading...

Touchscreen out, pen and paper in? Georgia trial could change voting rules

Plaintiffs in trial six years in the making say state’s computerized voting machines plane votes at unacceptable risk of being altered

A federal trial beginning this week in Atlanta could change the way people vote in next year’s election in a key swing state, and potentially affect voters in other states for years to come.

The trial, six years in the making, pits a non-profit organization and a handful of Georgia voters against the state, claiming that vulnerabilities in the state’s computerized voting machines place a voter’s choices at an unacceptable risk of being altered, infringing on their constitutional rights.

Continue reading...

Donald Trump did not sign Illinois pledge not to overthrow government

Former president sidestepped signing state’s loyalty oath, which opponents Nikki Haley and Chris Christie also have not signed

Joe Biden’s 2024 election campaign has lambasted former president and most likely Republican opponent Donald Trump for failing to sign a loyalty oath in the state of Illinois, in which candidates pledge against advocating for an overthrow of the government.

The Biden campaign was responding to an investigation by Illinois news outlets WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times, which reported that Trump sidestepped signing the McCarthy era voluntary pledge that is part of the midwestern state’s package of ballot-access paperwork submitted by 2024 electoral candidates last week.

Continue reading...

Trump avoids mention of US Capitol attack on 6 January anniversary

Three years after insurrection, Trump was in Newton, Iowa, currying support before the 15 January Republican caucus

Donald Trump largely ducked speaking about the January 6 attack on the US Capitol during a campaign speech Saturday, which he delivered on the third anniversary of the insurrection, reflecting the degree to which Republican voters have absolved the former president of responsibility for that day’s deadly consequences.

Trump’s remarks came a day after Joe Biden appeared in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, and spoke about how his presidential predecessor had urged his supporters to “fight like hell” shortly before they staged the Capitol attack.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting

Continue reading...

Biden accuses Trump of ‘assault on democracy’ and says ‘it’s what he’s promising for the future’ – as it happened

This live blog is now closed. For our latest reporting on Biden, read our most recent:

We are going to hear a lot about January 6 at 3.15pm today, when Joe Biden marks the third anniversary of the deadly attack on the Capitol with a speech that doubles as the start of his presidential campaigning in 2024.

Republican presidential contenders, by contrast, tend to have little to say about the insurrection, even when asked directly. A questioner at CNN’s town hall in Iowa last night asked Ron DeSantis for his views on the attack, and the Florida governor responded with a brief condemnation, then changed the subject. Here’s the moment:

Continue reading...

Biden attacks Trump as grave threat to democracy in rousing 2024 speech

On eve of January 6 anniversary, US president condemns likely rival and warns voters ‘democracy is on the ballot’ in November

A day before the third anniversary of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, Joe Biden delivered a pointed speech to warn voters against re-electing Donald Trump, criticizing the likely Republican presidential nominee as a fundamental threat to democracy in an attempt to shape the dynamics of the 2024 election.

“Today we’re here to answer the most important of questions: is democracy still America’s sacred cause?” Biden said. “Today, I make this sacred pledge to you: the defense, protection and preservation of American democracy will remain, as it has been, the central cause of my presidency.

Continue reading...

Trump asks US supreme court to review Colorado ruling removing him from 2024 ballot

Colorado supreme court issued ruling on Tuesday but in anticipation of appeal stayed it until 4 January

Donald Trump appealed to the US supreme court on Wednesday to undo the Colorado ruling that removed him from the ballot in the western state under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, for inciting an insurrection.

“In our system of ‘government of the people, by the people, [and] for the people,’ Colorado’s ruling is not and cannot be correct,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in their Wednesday filing. They also said the Colorado supreme court’s ruling “if allowed to stand, will mark the first time in the history of the United States that the judiciary has prevented voters from casting ballots for the leading major-party presidential candidate”.

Continue reading...