Category Archives: US elections 2024

Biden to jump-start 2024 campaign with focus on fight for democracy

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Biden-Harris campaign, in a conference call with reporters, said they aim to draw sharp contrast between US president and Trump

Ailing in opinion polls, Joe Biden will aim to jump-start his re-election campaign in the coming week with events designed to symbolise the fight for democracy and racial justice against Donald Trump.

The Biden-Harris campaign announced the plans in a conference call with reporters that mentioned Trump by name 28 times in just 24 minutes, a sign of its determination to draw a sharp contrast between the US president and his likely Republican challenger.

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Harvard Corporation condemns ‘racist vitriol’ directed at Claudine Gay and says she ‘acknowledged missteps’ – as it happened

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The Democrats are, unsurprisingly, laying into Republican House majority leader Steve Scalise for his endorsement of Donald Trump today.

Even before his endorsement, Scalise was among the many House Republicans who have cast doubt on the validity of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, and supported the Trump campaign’s failed effort to get the supreme court to interfere in the vote result four years ago.

MAGA House Republicans keep showing America they’ve turned the House into little more than an arm of Donald Trump’s campaign – so it’s no surprise Steve Scalise, who called himself ‘David Duke without the baggage,’ is joining the parade of House extremists backing Trump’s bid. Scalise’s top priority has always been pushing Trump’s unpopular agenda: He voted against certifying the 2020 election, is hellbent on banning abortion nationwide, and worked with Trump to try to rip away Americans’ health care. Scalise’s endorsement is the latest proof that while the House GOP is unable to accomplish anything on behalf of the American people, they are laser-focused on advancing Trump’s MAGA agenda and ripping away freedoms.

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Biden offers optimistic new year’s message as Trump lashes out

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President touts US job gains and says his resolution is ‘to come back’ while ex-president repeats unproven election rigging claims

The likely candidates in the 2024 presidential match-up issued two starkly different new year messages to voters, with Joe Biden striking a note of cheerful optimism as his almost certain challenger Donald Trump, and Trump lashing out in a social media post laden with lies and conspiracy theories.

The president and first lady Jill Biden, vacationing in St Croix in the US Virgin Islands, offered a New Year’s message touting US job gains and the performance of the US economy during his administration – a message that voters have so far refused to accept.

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Trump gaining ground among Latino voters, poll shows

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Ex-president ahead with 39% support among Latino voters surveyed, wiping out Biden’s lead among crucial voting bloc

A new poll indicates former US president Donald Trump is gaining ground among Latino voters, wiping out incumbent Joe Biden’s lead among the crucial, but diverse, voting bloc.

A USA Today and Suffolk University survey showed Trump was ahead with 39% support among Latino voters surveyed, compared to Biden’s 34%, signaling a slump since 2020, when Biden garnered 65% of the approval from Latino voters.

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Former aides warn of ‘running out of time’ to prevent Trump re-election

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Sarah Matthews, Cassidy Hutchinson and Alyssa Farah Griffin insist Trump’s behavior would be worse if he wins second term

The re-election of Donald Trump in 2024 could “end American democracy as we know it”, according to three women who worked for him in the White House during his chaotic term in office.

All three gave testimony to the US House committee investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat as well as the 6 January 6 Capitol attack staged by his supporters. And they warned in an unprecedented television interview on Sunday that time was short to prevent a second Trump administration in which they insist his behavior would be much worse.

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How 2023 became the year Congress forgot to ban TikTok

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Momentum seemed to be on their side of US lawmakers this year to stop 150 million Americans from using TikTok. What happened?

Banning TikTok in the US seemed almost inevitable at the start of 2023. The previous year saw a trickle of legislative actions against the short-form video app, after dozens of individual states barred TikTok from government devices in late 2022 over security concerns. At the top of the new year, the US House followed suit, and four universities blocked TikTok from campus wifi.

The movement to prohibit TikTok grew into a flash flood by spring. CEO Shou Zi Chew was called before Congress for brutal questioning in March. By April – with support from the White House (and Joe Biden’s predecessor) – it seemed a federal ban of the app was not just possible, but imminent.

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Trump 2024 trials in limbo as supreme court becomes entangled

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Potential trial delays mean the former president could spend less time in courtroom and more time on the campaign trail

When Donald Trump was indicted in multiple criminal cases this summer, the conventional wisdom was that the former US president could spend vast amounts of time during the height of the 2024 presidential campaign stuck in courtrooms for back-to-back trials in New York, Florida and Washington.

But the reality is that with the federal 2020 election interference case on hold pending appeals, and repeated delays pushing the classified documents case behind schedule by several months, for instance, Trump may find himself in courtrooms far less than expected.

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Democratic long-shot candidates to debate in New Hampshire – without Biden

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Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips will appear on stage together on 8 January, two weeks before state’s primary

The lonely political vigil of long-shot Democratic presidential candidates Marianne Williamson and Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips will be transformed on to the debate stage early next month in New Hampshire – without Joe Biden, who is neither on the state ballot nor agreeable to any debate interaction with competitors.

The debate between self-help author Williamson and Phillips is set to be held at the New England College on 8 January, and moderated by Josh McElveen, former political director of radio station WMUR, two weeks before the state holds its primary.

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US supreme court under pressure to rule swiftly on states’ Trump ballot bans

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Court faces pressure to rule on Maine and Colorado’s decisions preventing ex-president from appearing on presidential ballots

A decision by Maine’s secretary of state to prevent former president Donald Trump from appearing on the state’s presidential election ballot will now probably end up before the US supreme court. Maine’s move follows a similar decision in Colorado this month.

There is mounting pressure on the conservative-leaning judicial body to swiftly rule on Maine and Colorado’s application of section 3 of the 14th amendment prohibiting anyone who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office. But neither decision will be the last ballot eruption in an already convulsive election which is likely to see a rematch of Trump versus Joe Biden.

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Lauren Boebert announces change of congressional district for 2024 elections

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Far-right Colorado representative had won the third district by just 546 votes in 2022 and will move to the fourth for a ‘fresh start’

Colorado’s Republican representative Lauren Boebert has announced that she will be changing congressional districts ahead of her 2024 Republican nomination bid for the House.

In a Facebook video on Wednesday, the 36-year old, far-right representative announced that she would be moving from Colorado’s third district to its fourth district.

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Biden mulls border crackdown in face of Trump’s migrant-bashing rhetoric

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President faces pressure from Republican critics and Democratic allies as he struggles to address what both sides agree is a crisis

Heading into the heat of the 2024 election season, Joe Biden is weighing major changes to US immigration policy that would toughen border enforcement and address an issue that has emerged as one of the president’s biggest political vulnerabilities ahead of a likely rematch against his anti-immigration rival Donald Trump.

But it is also a risk for Biden, who entered the White House in 2021 promising to “restore humanity and American values to our immigration system” after Trump’s four-year crackdown on immigration.

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‘Sitting on a powder keg’: US braces for a year, and an election, like no other

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Amid fears of authoritarianism, oldest US president likely to face off against first president to be criminally charged

The 60th US presidential election, which will unfold in 2024, will be quite unlike any that has gone before as the US, and the rest of the world, braces for a contest amid fears of eroding democracy and the looming threat of authoritarianism.

It will be a fight marked by numerous unwanted firsts as the oldest president in the country’s history is likely to face the first former US president to stand trial on criminal charges. A once aspirational nation will continue its plunge into anxiety and divisions about crime, immigration, race, foreign wars and the cost of living.

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Nikki Haley surges in poll to within four points of Republican leader Trump

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Former South Carolina governor still trails the ex-president, but has made strides in polling ahead of the New Hampshire primary

The former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has pulled within four percentage points of frontrunner Donald Trump in New Hampshire’s 2024 Republican presidential primary, a contest which could prove closer than expected for the ex-president, according to a new poll.

In an American Research Group Inc poll released on Thursday which had asked voters whom they preferred in the New Hampshire primary scheduled for 23 January, Haley earned 29% support to Trump’s 33%. That meant the gap between Haley and Trump was within the survey’s 4% margin of error after the former president had long held dominating polling leads in the race for the 2024 Republican White House nomination.

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DeSantis political woes deepen after chief strategist for Super Pac resigns

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Jeff Roe, who led Never Back Down, said he was stepping down from the $269m fund, just weeks before Iowa caucus

Florida governor Ron DeSantis political woes have deepened further in the wake of the surprise resignation of a chief strategist at a leading campaign fund dealing yet another blow to the right-winger’s rapidly waning 2024 presidential hopes.

Jeff Roe, the chief strategist for the DeSantis-backing Super Pac Never Back Down, said he was stepping down from the massive, $269m fund that was billed as a novel application of campaign finance laws that prevent the integration of a Pac and its spending with a candidate’s campaign.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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‘He’s dog-whistling’: Trump denounced over anti-immigrant comment

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Former president said undocumented immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country’ at political rally on Saturday

Donald Trump is facing a backlash for repeating a remark at a political rally on Saturday where he said undocumented immigrants to the United States are “poisoning the blood of our country”.

The former US president’s comments were the latest example of his campaign rhetoric that seemed to go beyond the lies and exaggerations that are a trademark of his stump speeches and instead go into territory of outright extremism or racism. In November he was widely condemned for calling his opponents “vermin”, language that echoed that used historically by dictators and authoritarians.

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New York high court orders new state congressional maps for 2024 elections

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The 4-3 decision could have major ramifications for the control of the US House as Democrats angle to gain control of it

New York’s highest court on Tuesday ordered the state to draw new congressional districts ahead of the 2024 elections, giving Democrats a potential advantage in what is expected to be a battleground for control of the US House.

The 4-3 decision from the New York court of appeals could have major ramifications as Democrats angle for more favorable district lines in the state next year. Republicans, who won control of the House after flipping seats in New York, sought to keep the map in place.

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Trump tests federal gag order with attack on Bill Barr: ‘He was a coward’

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Audience at gala event included allies that Trump is expected to tap for top roles should he be re-elected next year

Donald Trump tested the contours of his gag order in the federal criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, assailing his former attorney general and potential trial witness William Barr in remarks at a Saturday night New York gala event.

“I make this commitment to you tonight: we will not have Bill Barr as our attorney general, is that OK?” Trump said as he discussed a potential second presidency. “He was a coward. He was afraid of being impeached.”

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Mitt Romney says his endorsement in 2024 race would be ‘kiss of death’

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Republican senator also declines to rule out voting for Biden, and added he wishes Joe Manchin would ‘be the Democratic nominee’

Utah senator Mitt Romney declined to rule out voting for Joe Biden next year and said he hasn’t offered an endorsement in the Republican race because his backing would probably be a “kiss of death”.

“If I endorsed them, it would be the kiss of death – I’m not going to do that,” Romney said during an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press.

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McCarthy endorses Trump for president: ‘We’re very honest with each other’

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Former House speaker, who has driven out by Trump loyalists, also expressed interest in joining his cabinet should Trump win in 2024

Former US House speaker Kevin McCarthy has endorsed Donald Trump in the 2024 race for the Oval Office while also expressing interest in joining his administration should he win, even though loyalists of the ex-president drove the congressman into an early exit.

While serving as a House leader, McCarthy did not formally endorse Trump’s campaign for a second presidency, though the California representative was generally supportive of his fellow Republican. But, four days after announcing in an opinion column in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal that he was leaving Congress at the end of December, McCarthy appeared on CBS’s Sunday Morning and made clear that he backed Trump’s attempts to return to power.

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Local elections officials inundated with records requests by rightwing activists

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Counties in swing states like Georgia overwhelmed with requests at the same time as they scramble to prepare for 2024

Deb Cox has been elections director of Lowndes county in southern Georgia for more than a decade – and has never before received so many time-consuming demands for public information.

Like many elections officials across the country, Cox has been inundated with Freedom of Information Act and open records requests from rightwing activists who believe the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. That’s forced her and other local officials to spend an unusual amount of time and money providing polling documents to partisan groups – an additional burden as they scramble to prepare for the fraught 2024 presidential election.

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